Cities don't often get a chance to revise gigantic planning snafus of the past. But Cleveland is fortunate. The Inner Belt - the massive, 40-year-old artery that bridges the Cuyahoga River, links four interstates and flanks downtown to the south and east - is nearing the point where it may need to be replaced and redesigned.

Last spring, the Ohio Department of Transportation announced it would begin a two-year, $7.2 million study to determine the Inner Belt's future. That study has finally begun in earnest.

Tomorrow, ODOT will hold its first public open house to solicit ideas about how to improve the roadway. ODOT officials hope at least 500 people show up, but they're ready for 1,000 or more. The meeting will be held from 4:30 to 8:30 p.m. in the West Wing of the Cleveland State University Convocation Center at E. 21st St. and Prospect Ave. Formal presentations about the project will be made at 5:30 and 7 p.m. Child care will be provided.

Construction on the Inner Belt, which could run into the hundreds of millions of dollars, won't begin for seven years. But crucial decisions will be made early on. Now is the time to dream big dreams.

The Inner Belt project is a fabulous opportunity. Originally designed in the 1950s and built between 1959 and 1969, the road is a product of the first great age of highway construction in the United States. Back then, the sole objective was to move traffic.

The Inner Belt and Interstate 490 cut the Tremont neighborhood off from the rest of the city. The Inner Belt imposed an ugly tangle of ramps and interchanges on the south side of downtown. And it gave the city the ominously named Dead Man's Curve, where the Inner Belt meets the Shoreway in a sharp turn. Four miles east of downtown, the Shoreway sliced Gordon Park in half and scarred the northern end of Rockefeller Park.

Forty years ago, the attitude was: "screw the neighborhoods, go through the wetlands and the slums," Cleveland City Planning Director Hunter Morrison said at an ODOT meeting last week. "We need to do it right this time and not screw up again."

In a separate interview, Morrison said he viewed the Inner Belt project as a chance to fix Dead Man's Curve, to improve Gordon Park, to turn part of the Shoreway into a boulevard and to "green up a very harsh concrete and chain-link environment." He sees it as a chance to "make things better," not to "keep them from getting worse."

ODOT hasn't predetermined the outcome of its planning study. At a bare minimum, the state says it will cost $120 million merely to repave the Inner Belt from W. 25th St. to the Shoreway. But it's likely the project will go beyond repaving. If it does, the cost, heavily funded by federal dollars, could mount.

That money could be spent wisely or foolishly. It's all a matter of design.

Other cities have used similar investments to bring about dramatic improvements in their downtowns.

Cincinnati riverfront

Cincinnati just opened up its entire downtown riverfront with a $346 million makeover of Fort Washington Way on the Ohio River. That project narrowed the highway trench between downtown and the river from 646 to 340 feet, while adding lanes and improving traffic flow. By squeezing exit ramps to either end of the downtown riverfront, the project opened up 15 acres of prime real estate for development, and created 55 acres of new parkland at the water's edge. It also created a setting for the Underground Railroad Freedom Center and the city's new football and baseball stadiums.

Fort Worth, Texas, expanded the south side of its downtown by moving a 4-mile elevated section of I-30 seven blocks farther south of the business core. The $161 million project, which will be finished next year, will bring dramatic improvements to the city's image. In place of the old highway, the state will build a tree-lined boulevard leading from the Water Garden and the city's convention center to its cultural district 2 miles to the west.

Cleveland ought to be able to do at least as well with the Inner Belt. If the highway and its connecting ramps and appendages are reconceived and rebuilt with the highest standards of civic design, they could help reconnect Cleveland to Lake Erie and the river. It could heal neighborhoods, raise land values and create new economic opportunities. And it could beautify Cleveland.

Bridge for skyline

If the Inner Belt bridge is replaced, Cleveland will have a once-in-a-century chance to commission a spectacular piece of engineering that could redefine the city's image and announce to the world this is a savvy, sophisticated place ready for the age of high-tech.

ODOT Director Gordon Proctor said in an interview last week that if a new bridge is needed, aesthetics could be a main factor in selecting the designer. If that's the case, Cleveland ought to press the state to get the best bridge designers in the world to compete for the job. That list certainly includes Santiago Calatrava of Spain, whose futuristic bridges have added drama to skylines across Europe.

Burgess & Niple, the Columbus-based engineering firm leading the Inner Belt study, is responsible for identifying the main options for the highway project, and their costs. Two years from now, ODOT will conduct a separate search for a new design team to complete blueprints and manage construction.

If Burgess & Niple hopes to get that bigger job in the future, it must do an outstanding job now. And it will have to cooperate well with a separate, city-controlled project to design new truck routes throughout the Flats industrial and entertainment areas.

The Flats project, which has received scant public attention so far, could ultimately cost $145 million or more to build. Parsons Brinckerhoff, a New York-based engineering firm, is in charge of the $500,000 design study to do the same kind of preliminary design for the Flats truck routes that Burgess & Niple will perform for the Inner Belt. Truck access routes around the Northern Ohio Food Terminal, in the Maingate district south of downtown, also may become involved in the overall revision of the Inner Belt.

Politics aside

This being an election year for Cleveland mayor and all 21 members of City Council, opportunities are plentiful for grandstanding on the highway projects. But more is at stake than the outcome of the elections in November. The highway projects will shape the future of the city for the next half century or more.

Mayor Michael White seems to realize this. Last week, he authorized Ken Silliman, executive assistant for development, to make conciliatory statements about how the mayor, who routinely bashes City Council, wants to work closely with its members on the Inner Belt.

"It's clearly an issue that transcends the differences we have on other issues," Silliman said.

This was refreshing a day after the mayor slammed a proposal for a new convention center site being developed by members of council. After championing his own plan for the convention center last April, the mayor has now dropped that project completely in favor of making repairs to badly deteriorated city schools.

In truth, the city has to do more than one thing at a time. It has to fix the schools, expand its airport, open up the lakefront and the Cuyahoga River, build a new convention center and improve the downtown highway network.

A great city ought to be able to do all of those things simultaneously. If Cleveland can't, it will be an admission that Cincinnati, Fort Worth and other cities like them are better equipped to seize the century to come.